Here Are The Archaic Rules Enforced By The Al-Qaeda Offshoot Taking Over Cities In Iraq And Syria

Earlier this week, roughly 800 insurgents — many of them linked
to the extremist al-Qaeda offshoot ISIS — took over the country's second-largest city,
Mosul, after
30,000 Iraqi troops fled.

Iraqi officials inBaghdad conceded that
the fighters commandeered military arsenal, released
hundreds of prisoners from jail, and seized up to $430 million
from the city's central bank.

They have told
people in Mosul to return to work and have asked the more than
500,000 people who fled to come back. But that seems unlikely
given the extremists group's draconian rules, which have
been enforced with
brutal punishments across northern Syria.

• "For those asking who are you? We
are soldiers of Islam and took on our responsibility to bring
back glory of the Islamic Caliphate."

• "People you tried secular rulings (Republic,
Baathist, Safavides) and it pained you. Now it is time for
Islamic State Imam Abu Bakr El Qurashi.

ISIS, with fighters about 75
miles from the capital, is now
threateningto march on
Baghdad despite being badly outmannned by Iraqi army forces. The
Kurds are also
involved, capturing the coveted city of Kirkuk in northeast
Iraq.

Importantly, any successful
campaign by ISIS will ultimately require the people to allow
it.

ISIS does not have the manpower to repeatedly take & hold
multiple major urban centres in #Iraq.
Instead, ISIS appears to represent.. (1/2)